Brad and I travel a lot. In total we've spent at least a year and a half of our 7 years together on the road meeting people, hiking, eating, and exploring. Today we're leaving for another two and a half week trip. (!) This one will be a whirlwind. First we're heading to a 4 day music festival in Appalachian Ohio with some family. Then we're driving a car out west to Brad's cousin. In Seattle. In 5 days. (Will we have time for a hike?!) Then-- we fly to the beach for a week before coming home. We're going to miss Luna the cat sooo much.

This is Luna. I couldn't help it. I had to share.

It's tough for me to pare my herbal medicine chest down to the "essentials" but I think I got it for this trip. I've packed a handful of things that will address the greatest number of the ailments that I personally experience while traveling.

bitters, ginger, and peppermint tinctures

I get stomachaches easily, especially on the road. My healthy food choices are limited; I get carsick; I don't move enough. The bitters help my body to break down whatever junky thing I end up having to eat and if the bitters aren't enough the peppermint makes me feel better every time. The peppermint was also great the time I forgot my toothbrush while camping, it helps burns, and takes care of mild headaches. The ginger is incredible at stopping nausea-- perfect for winding roads and airplanes.

salve, disinfecting liniment, cayenne

I'm bringing my all-purpose comfrey and plantain healing salve in case I get burned, cut, scratched, or... just end up needing moisturizer on the plane. The liniment is a serious disinfectant made with echinacea, goldenseal, myrrh, and cayenne. I'm bringing a shaker of cayenne because it also helps with digestion, is helpful in the event of a cold, and works as a mild stimulant for long drives.

nettles and catnip

Picking herbs for tea was perhaps the most difficult for me. I drink so many cups of herbal tea daily and sometimes put as many as 6 different herbs in each cup. I decided on stinging nettles because it's possibly the most vitamin-rich. Catnip I chose because it helps with stomach aches, restlessness, and anxiety. And I love the taste of both.

It wasn't until my ear started to ache and a headache hit last Friday that I noticed I was sick. My throat had been sore for a couple of days but the building I live in is perpetually under renovation and perpetually dusty. The crucial sore throat signal was lost in a sea of dusty white noise. After my ear started aching I touched my throat and swore when I realized that my lymph nodes were swollen too. I hadn't dosed myself early on with high vitamin C teas (hibiscus, rose hips) or taken shots of fire cider (vinegar, honey, horseradish, ginger, garlic, lemon) and now the sore throat had progressed further than it had in years.

hibiscus high vitamin C tea

Being pretty far along with an earache I dug out the potent antimicrobial oregon grape root (Mahonia aquafolium) and made a big batch of tea mixed with echinacea (Echinacea augustfolia) for immune support and marshmallow root (AlthAea officinalis) for my still-sore throat. I made a fresh cleavers (Galium aparine) tea for my swollen lymph nodes and later made a cool rosemary (Rosmarinus officianalis) tea for my headache. I felt fine the next day but my throat is still scratchy today. Though that might just be the dust.

I'm insatiable, wanting to test out new herbs and new recipes constantly. Every malady a friend mentions is met with less empathy and more excitement than is probably appropriate because I'm just too happy to find new things to study and practice. Up above is the absurd amount of spent herbs I've ended up with over a 4 day period after making many teas and salves. Every day I make at least two pots of herbal teas. At one point I had a tea and an oil going on the stove while I was measuring out ingredients for some tinctures. Herbs everywhere.

schisandra berries, rhodiola, eleuthero (siberian ginseng)

My first project for the week was to formulate an energy and focus tincture for a very dear friend. I know that there are more common herbs that could be used in a formula for this purpose (perhaps peppermint and rosemary?) but I wanted to learn more about schisandra, rhodiola, and eleuthero. I was intrigued by the possibility of using these three adaptogens over the course of a month or so. Instead of getting a quick pick-me-up as one would from something like peppermint, or coffee (which depletes the body of calcium and iron), these three herbs give some immediate energy and also help the body to build up resistance to stress and sickness, and increase energy over time the more they are used. They simply help the body to work better. Since tincturing herbs takes 6-8 weeks I also made a tea blend so we can try the formula sooner.

comfrey, witch hazel, yarrow

I've inherited many things from my mother-- a love of nature and learning, unending curiosity and questioning, a love of savory things over sweet. Varicose veins are also something I inherited. I actually had some removed when I was 24 because after standing and teaching for 3 years they were painful and made standing (teaching) pretty much impossible. Other veins are starting to cause discomfort, though it's happening more slowly since I'm not standing all day anymore. I do not want to have any more removed-- I hated the experience-- so I found a recipe for a salve by Rosemary Gladstar I thought I'd try out. I'm not sure how well it will work yet, but I generally have great success with Rosemary's recipes. I'm clearly still learning about proportions... I accidentally made enough for a dozen people instead of just for me and am hoping to find friends who need it.

For a friend who is dealing with deep heart break I created a tea blend made of a small handful from every jar of flowers I have. I started with a base of strong + gentle nervines-- skullcap and a little valerian-- and then kept adding the flowers. Some of the flowers are nervines, some I added to give nourishment, but some I added just for beauty and fragrance. Self care and ritual is medicine too.

Suddenly there are babies and pregnant ladies all around me all the time. Spring is fertile?

A friend of mine has wicked morning sickness that won't let up so I suggested a few gentle but potent herbs that could help. If the herbs are taken as a tea go for a tablespoon of herb for every cup of water.

Ginger. It could honestly be candied ginger or a ginger chew, but the best would be grated ginger boiled in water (maybe with some lemon and a little sweetener!). I also made ginger lozenges that worked AMAZINGLY when I got motion sickness on an airplane.

Peppermint. It could be a tincture or a tea with really fresh, green leaves. If it's a tea just buy the best organic brand you can-- I wouldn't want flavorless (and medicine-less) peppermint leaves that have been spruced up with peppermint flavor.

Hops and Chamomile. A tea could be made of just these or mixed with peppermint. This tea is particularly great for motion sickness that is made worse by stress (or stress that is made worse by motion sickness.)

Nutritive tea of Lemon Balm, Nettle, and Raspberry Leaf. Since it's hard to eat I suggested that my friend make a nutritious tea so she's getting plenty of the vitamins and minerals that she needs. If it's really tough to take the tea can be frozen into ice cubes and let to melt in her mouth.

This is the year and the time of year I've been waiting for. Becoming an adult and living in New York City for the better part of 6 years kept me disconnected from lunar cycles, celestial events, the growing season... nature, sunlight. Having left the city, this is the first year I can plant a garden, go on hikes through the week, keep track of what's happening in the sky. I'm more free, even with the constraints of not making much money anymore.

The morning of the first day of spring it was raining. I worked in my building's community garden a little, munching on the chives and sorrel poking up from the ground and smelling the damp earth. We found a giant carrot still in the ground and I checked out the few herbs that were in the garden from last year.

I made a few bitter spring detox teas to stimulate my liver and a few soothing nervine teas to help me relax and let go of stress I've carried over the winter that wasn't serving me.

And finally, finally, after deciding to move to Ohio in order to study with an herbalist here and spending a couple months studying the texts on my own, I went to my first class! It was the ultimate start to spring, tasting and discussing herbs and their effects and poking around an enormous herb garden.